


The Hilariously Miscalculated Kidnapping of Edward Elric

by Atlas_M_33



Series: The Fullmetal Mechanisms [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Puns, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Humor, Immortality, Immortals in Space, Kidnapping, Temporary Character Death, The Mechanisms-Typical Violence, avenging your brother's death as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28562112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlas_M_33/pseuds/Atlas_M_33
Summary: Scar has spent the decades since the Lunar War and his subsequent... biological upgrade hunting down the soldiers, officers and other military personnel responsible for the conflict and the tragedies that befell his people in the aftermath. When he finds evidence that Colonel "Hellfire Roy" Mustang, infamous for his alchemy and credited with the final attack, isn't as dead as he was reported decades ago, he decides to look into it.It very much doesn't go the way he expects.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Edward Elric & Scar
Series: The Fullmetal Mechanisms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092710
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	The Hilariously Miscalculated Kidnapping of Edward Elric

**Author's Note:**

> Is this definitely ooc? Yes. But this is a Mechs AU and they’ve been alive and around each other for a [REDACTED] amount of time at this point, so I think I can get away with it. I don’t have an excuse for Scar other than I think it’s funny when serious characters have an internal monologue that’s just them screaming at various intervals.
> 
> This installment is loosely inspired by The Ignominious Death of Dr. Pilchard, in that I was listening to that song when I had the idea.
> 
> Thank you for reading this Thing I produced for an audience of Me. I hope you enjoy! :)

Scar’s been at this for years and he’s never missed a target. He’s tracked down over a dozen of the officers- heroes, _criminals-_ that were involved in the war, some of which were only named when you got _really_ deep into the classified files. 

Or if you convinced their superiors and subordinates that it was in their best interests to start dropping names. It didn’t matter how well the military thought they’d hidden their sins and their dogs, Scar had gotten to them anyway. 

Which is why it’s a wonder it’s the first time he’s seeing this picture.

For a split second, Scar considers the idea that he’s finally snapped. That decades of death and vengeance have manifested as a hallucination of the most infamous soldier that’s ever lived. Mustang- Roy Mustang, _the Hellfire Colonel-_ was supposed to be long dead. _Deader_ than dead. _One man suicide mission to blow up half the moon,_ dead.

But Scar looks at the picture again and he’s still there. It’s a messy shot, the top half of his face is blocked by the angle of the photo and his hair and the hat he’s wearing, but the array stitched on the gloves is blood red and clear as day, and the shape and size of him matches all the records and photos taken during the war. Scar’s done more with less before, and this is only the starting point anyway. It might be Mustang, it might be some other military dog with access to the array and a sick sense of humor. There’s only one way to find out. 

Scar turns his attention to the other person in the picture, facing Mustang and looking up at him with an expression that’s half adoration and half indignation. Their hair is long and golden, and most of it is tied back into a braid but some still hangs loose, including the lock being pushed behind their ear by a hand wearing one of those cursed gloves, neatly exposing both to the camera. 

_Yes,_ Scar thinks. _I can work with this._

He spends the next five years tracking them down, and manages to only get sidetracked once or twice, like when he found out that General Raven had retired to a resort planet in the system right next door. His hunt for the two in the picture would probably be comical, if it didn’t make him so angry. It’s a saga of coincidences and near misses and bad information that always seems to end with him a step behind. Space is big and they hop planets randomly, arriving at odd hours and leaving at even stranger ones, and they don’t seem to care that they’re so easy to trace.

Scar doesn’t know whether it’s pride or arrogance or some strange way of taunting the universe in general, but he learns that the man he’s chasing actually _does_ travel using the name Mustang, which means he’s either very confident in himself or he’s a fool. His companion, the golden one who’s far too young to have gotten mixed up with a mass murderer, much less one as old as Mustang, seems to go by the name Elric. Somehow, Scar has to work harder to keep tabs on _him_ than the undead war criminal.

In the end, for all the grief he’s gone through trying to catch up to them, it’s easier than Scar thought it would be to capture Colonel Mustang’s companion. He grabs the kid from a scrapyard, leaves the pile of parts he’d gathered behind with a set of coordinates, scribbled onto a scrap of paper and pinned down by the swirled metal clip that had been attached to the end of his braid. Then he takes off for the cabin he’s been squatting in, far outside the town borders where there’s nothing but fields for miles, and he settles in. 

Barely 15 minutes after they arrive at the cabin, the small golden form tied to the chair in front of him starts to stir. “Wha-?” The grogginess passes in seconds, and then Scar is staring into a pair of hazel eyes as golden as his hair. “Th’fuck is going on? Did you fuckin _abduct_ me?”

Scar doesn’t let himself react to the outburst. The ones he’s taken as lures in the past have often used anger to conceal their fear. “Yes.” It doesn’t matter. This strangely golden boy has nothing to fear from him. Elric is only the bait for a much larger and more valuable prize.

His hostage doesn't seem to be impressed by his answer, and simply raises a single eyebrow and looks around the room. “Why? What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Scar replies, because it’s true. Elric has done nothing to deserve his ire. It’s entirely possible that he doesn’t even know who his soldier really is.

Elric snorts and shifts in the chair, shoulders straining for a few moments before he seems to accept that the ropes are too tight to allow for an escape. Scar’s watched this one, he knows how slippery he can be. “If I didn’t do anything, why am I strapped to a chair in your murder cabin?”

“You are here as a hostage. Nothing more.”

That seems to get Elric’s attention, and the look he gives Scar is more surprise than anything else. “Why?”

Scar stands, moves towards the small window near the door. His message should have been found by now. If Mustang intends to come, he will be arriving soon. “To serve justice upon your soldier.”

“What soldier?” Elric is quick, but not quick enough to cover the way he momentarily went still at the words. 

“Mustang.”

“Never heard of him.”

Scar feels the disappointment cross his face, and the expression is so foreign he nearly forgets to speak. “He destroyed the Terran moon.”

Elric laughs, but it's a strained noise, like he had to force it out of his chest. _“That_ Mustang? Everyone knows he died during the Lunar War. How about you read a history book instead of kidnapping strangers to accuse them of knowing dead people.”

Scar shoves himself away from the wall so he can crouch in front of his hostage. The boy is much calmer than the others he’s taken before, the spouses and siblings and children and lovers of the remaining officers that took part in the war. “I saw him. I saw the _array._ And I saw you with him. He will come for you or he will find your corpse.” He hopes that Mustang will come. He does not want this young man’s blood on his hands. 

Elric continues to defy his expectations. He laughs again. “Oh that's a bad idea.”

“So was the destruction of the moon. The war ended, but how many lives were ruined? In the places where the debris fell, in the places where the tide was no longer restrained?”

“Do you even know _why_ he blew up the moon?” Elric is leaning forward, straining against the ropes binding him so he can get right in Scar’s face. “It wasn't some _glorious mission_ he undertook, or whatever bullshit story they peddled. It was because he got his useless ass captured behind enemy lines and he wanted to take one of the pricks who kicked that shit off in the first place down with him. Besides,” Elric snorts, and flips his bangs out of his eyes. “It’s like _at least_ 30% my fault that he lost it and blew the moon outta the sky. Maybe more.”

Scar blinks. It has taken him _years_ to get this far, to become confident enough in the abilities granted to him by his brother’s gift, to start tracking down the men responsible, to stumble across the evidence that Mustang was even _alive_ so that he could track him down and find a way to lure him out. This boy cannot be older than 25. When the war ended, when _Mustang_ ended it, it was long before Elric would have even been _born._ Why would it be his-

Scar’s train of thought is forcefully derailed when the door flies off its hinges and crashes into the opposite wall.

He turns and finally, after all of his work and waiting, he stands across from the man responsible for the disasters that befell Ishval in the years after the war. He’s not sure what exactly he expected, but it’s not what he’s seeing right now. 

Roy Mustang looks exactly the same as he did in those war photos, taken back when the people of Central had first hailed him as their hero, as their martyr to the cause. He’s wreathed in flame, the entryway still smoldering from the blast that cleared the door, but what draws Scar’s attention is his _eyes._ They’re glowing red in the darkness of the cabin, two spots of light locked on Scar, and even though he’s spent years working towards this moment he feels a bolt of fear down his spine. 

When the people called him the _Hellfire Colonel,_ Scar had brushed it off as wartime propaganda. He’d been expecting a washed up old soldier making a feeble attempt at saving their lover, not a still-young legend walking through fire and brimstone. He nearly stumbles back a step, but somehow scrapes himself together enough to stand his ground.

Behind him, Elric laughs. _“Always_ with the dramatic entrance. Took you long enough, you bastard.”

Somehow those two pinpricks of light manage to convey an irritated look that even Scar can pick up on. “I can still leave you here.”

Elric rolls his eyes. “Naw. Al would be sad and you’d give in in a heartbeat.” 

Mustang snorts. “I’m afraid that hearts giving in is more _your_ area of expertise,” he says, and something about the emphasis he puts on it makes Scar feel like he’s missing something.

Elric groans. “I take it back. Leave me here with the guy who wants to kill you. He doesn’t make me deal with awful puns.”

“At least this time you _see_ what I did there.”

Scar glances back at Elric, who looks more exhausted now than he did when he was first waking up from a blow to the head. The blond meets his eyes. “Please just hurry up and kill him.”

It’s definitely not meant to be permission, but Scar decides to take it that way anyway. He darts forward, gets a hand on Mustang’s chest, and activates the array carved into the arm his brother built him. The man doesn’t get a chance to fight back, just goes wide eyed and coughs up a glob of blood before he falls to the floor. Scar turns to his hostage, expecting to see tears, or outrage, or horror at the fact that his words had been taken literally.

Instead Elric is sitting there, swinging his feet back and forth, looking vaguely… bored? “That was a new one. What kind of array did you just use?”

Scar blames just having killed the man he’s been hunting for years for the fact that he can’t think of a way to respond and just ends up blurting out the first thing that pops into his head. “You are... not upset that I just killed him?”

“Hmm…” Elric keeps kicking his feet. “Not really.”

A voice speaks up behind him. “Edward, I thought we had something special, I’m wounded.”

“Literally,” Elric says.

Scar turns around. Mustang is sprawled on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on his hands with blood dripping down the front of his black coat and smeared generously across his grinning face. Scar lunges without thinking, right hand to Mustang’s forehead, array activated, more blood splattering the floor.

Elric snorts again and then starts giggling. “Roy, you useless bastard.” Scar, caught halfway between the dead body and the cackling lunatic still tied to a chair, stares at him, slightly concerned. 

“Are you done? Can we go now?” Mustang is talking again, using a handkerchief to wipe off his face, grimacing when he sees how much blood is on his coat. “You can’t kill me, and I don’t care enough to kill you.”

Something clicks into place. “You can’t die either.”

“Yes, that’s _exactly_ my point- wait,” Mustang stops dabbing at his coat and looks up, fury on his face, eyes burning. _“Either?_ Did you hurt Edward?” 

“Roy-” Elric doesn’t speak up in time, and Mustang snaps his fingers together. 

The fire moves too quickly for Scar to dodge, and the black takes him-

-but only for a moment, because neither of them have moved when he comes to with a gasp.

“Holy shit.” Elric’s mouth is hanging open, shock painted on his face.

Mustang staggers to his feet, hands fidgeting like he doesn’t know what to do with them now that there’s no fire involved. “Edward, is it possible that-”

“No. I would’ve known. I would’ve _felt_ it.” Scar has no way of knowing what they’re talking about, not with the way they’re cutting each other off mid sentence. 

“So then how-?” 

“I have no idea,” Elric turns, and his strange golden eyes meet Scar’s. “Ask him.”

“So,” Mustang turns as well, hands perched on his hips, looking down at where Scar is still sprawled on the floor. “You can’t die.”

Scar shakes his head and pushes up his sleeve, showing off the whirring gears and twisting wires of his brother’s final project. Dimly, he’s aware that showing his only defense to the man he just murdered twice is not the best idea, but the shock of death is still clinging to him, and his thoughts aren’t exactly coming in at optimum speed. “Not since my brother gave me this.” 

There’s a beat of silence as Elric and Mustang stare at him incredulously.

Suddenly Elric stands, and the unexpected movement makes both Scar and Mustang flinch. Elric either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because he just claps his hands together and starts talking. “Great! I like this one. He can come with us.” 

An incredulous look from Mustang, who sweeps an arm down his front to emphasize the amount of blood on his chest like there’s any way Elric could’ve missed it. “He just killed me. Multiple times.”

“So has Winry,” Elric says, dusting himself off. Scar never untied him. No one untied him. He is loose anyway. “So have the octokittens. So has Amestris’ cooking. He's not special.”

“Then why are we keeping him?” the man whines. Scar pinches himself to make sure that he’s actually awake and looking at Hellfire Roy, who ended the Lunar War by setting off an alchemic reaction so massive that half the moon exploded, and not currently entertaining some strange dream where the man he’s spent years tracking down in the name of vengeance whines like a petulant teenager. He feels the pinch. He is not dreaming.

Elric raises a hand and starts counting on his fingers as he lists things off. “He’s immortal, Winry is gonna want a look at that arm, he’s got _moxie,”_ Elric moves in the direction of the door, snagging Scar’s sleeve in one hand and dragging him along. He might as well let it happen. Today has already been so weird. “Bringing him on board is gonna bother you, Al will want to make a new friend,” They’ve left the confines of the little shack he’d been hiding out in, and Elric pauses for a moment to take in their surroundings before picking a direction and starting off. “And anyway, it’s been boring lately and I want to mix things up.” 

They crest a hill, and at the foot of the other side is a ship that looks like nothing Scar’s ever seen before, all gleaming silver metal and glowing strips of red light that swirl gracefully down the body of the vessel, dimming and glowing at a rhythmic pace like a heartbeat. There’s a pair of legs hanging out of an open panel towards the nose of the ship, and a man in armor handing tools up to whoever they belong to. Except-

They get closer to the ship and he sees that the man isn’t wearing metal, he’s _made_ of it. And the girl who jumps down from the maintenance hatch wipes at her face like she’s sweating, but her skin is so pale it’s nearly blue, and the flush on her cheeks is a strange gray color. And when Elric darts forward and lays his hand to the hull of the ship, the red starts to pulse a little faster, like a greeting. Elric speaks, too faint to hear, and the blonde girl yells something that sounds like _Stop bringing home strays!_

Scar stumbles to a stop. “Who are you people.” He doesn’t have enough brain power left to phrase it as a question.

A hand falls onto his shoulder, and he looks over to see the man he just killed multiple times smiling at him, his strange mechanical eyes clicking softly as the parts inside shift back and forth, glowing an eerie red. “He has that effect on people.” Mustang’s eyes turn back to Ed, and somehow the light in them gets… softer. The hand leaves his shoulder and thumps him solidly on the back. “Welcome to the Amestris. You get used to the weird stuff eventually.”

Mustang passes him, hands tucked in his pockets, steps confident and cocky, headed straight for the gangplank where Elric is perched on a crate of some kind, stretching to reach an open panel. “Need a hand, Edward? Or maybe an extra foot would be better.”

He’s got a bundle of wires in his hands now, twisting two together and capping off the exposed ends. “What are you on about now, bastard?”

“Well, I imagine an extra foot of height would do wonders for-”

 _“Who’re you callin’ so short he wouldn’t be able to reach the wires hanging from the bottom of the ship?”_ He abandons the tangle in favor of launching himself at Mustang, and the two wrestle on the grass, shouting insults the whole time.

“It’s okay you know. They do this all the time.” The metal man had approached while Scar was distracted, but his voice is soft and kind, and the tension seeps out of his shoulders without his permission. “You’re Scar right?” he nods, and the silver face twists into a smile. “I’m Alphonse. Come on, I’ll show you your room.” He turns and enters the ship, stepping over Ed and Mustang where they’re still tussling about. Ed has one hand fisted in Mustang’s hair, though Scar can’t tell if he’s trying to yank it out or use it to push him away. Mustang has a knee planted against Ed’s chest, trying to maintain the space between them. Both are screaming. Past them, Alphonse sticks his head back out the door and gestures for Scar to follow.

He does.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you liked this, please consider checking out my other works and subscribing to this series for future content.
> 
> Remember that as a reader your feedback is an Important part of the creative process!!! Comments > than kudos but both make me weep tears of joy and other emotions!! Thank you for reading!!


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